Wednesday, July 20, 2005

Al Jazeera's Spin

Al Jazeera has weighed in on President Bush's pick for the Supreme Court.

Its reporting of the story is shaped by the same template used by the liberal media outlets in the U.S., that Bush should have nominated a Sandra Day O'Connor clone.

Al Jazeera writes:


With the choice, Bush shrugged off pressure to pick a woman to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, a moderate conservative who was the first woman to serve on the court and often cast the deciding vote in controversial decisions.

As usual, Bush is depicted as a cowboy. When he shrugs off pressure, it's bad. When Durbin speaks his mind (Americans behaved like "Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime—Pol Pot or others —that had no concern for human beings"), Al Jazeera applauds him.

The article explains the important role the Supreme Court plays in shaping America through its rulings.


In one of those cases, O'Connor sided with her conservative colleagues in a majority decision to stop vote recounts in Florida in the 2000 election, in effect handing the White House to Bush over Al Gore.

The top Democrat in the Senate, Harry Reid, neither endorsed nor rejected Roberts, but set the stage for tough questioning by saying that the nominee had "suitable legal credentials" but required more scrutiny.

Roberts' last notable decision came only last week when his appeals court overturned a lower court decision that the special military tribunals for suspected terrorists at the Guantanamo detention camp in Cuba were illegal.

The decision was a victory for the Bush administration in its handling of "war on terror" detainees. But a new appeal is now expected to go to the Supreme Court.

Al Jazeera brings up the "Bush was selected, not elected" issue. It cites Reid's doubts about Roberts. It points out that Roberts was part of a decision that helps America wage the War on Terror.

It's like the article came straight from the DNC.


When detailing Roberts' "conservative credentials," Al Jazeera notes:

Roberts graduated from Harvard Law School in 1979, was a clerk to arch-conservative US Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist, served in president Ronald Reagan's White House, and was a senior federal prosecutor under Bush's father, former president George Bush Sr.

"Arch-conservative"?

Did Al Jazeera lift that from a MoveOn press release?

Again, following in the Radical Left's footsteps, it cites that Roberts was a prosecutor when Bush 41 was in office, playing into the theory that President Bush's purpose in office is to carry out his father's wishes.

Definitely, I think Al Jazeera deserves to be considered the ABC, NBC, and CBS of the East.


Or, if you prefer, ABC, NBC, and CBS deserve to be considered the Al Jazeera of the West.

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